§ 69. Calvin's youth and training. 303
history of his life (Histoire de la vie, 7nau7-s, actes, doctrine, Constance, et mort de Jean Calvin, Lyon, 1577, republished by Louis-Frau9ois Chastel, Magistral, Lyon, 1875, pp. 323, with an introduction of xxxi. pp.). He represents Calvin as " a man, above all others who lived in the world, ambitious, impudent, arrogant, cruel, malicious, vindictive, and ignorant" (!) (p. 12).
Among other incredible stories lie reports that Calvin in his youth was stigmatized (Jieur-de-lijse', branded with the national flower of France) at Noyon in punishment of a heinous crime, and then fled from France in disgrace. "Calvin," he says (p. 28 sq.), "pourveu d'une cure et d'une chapelle. Jilt surprins oii (et} convaincu du peche de Sodomie, pour lequel il fut en danger de mort par feu, comment est la commune peine de tel peche': mais que I'Evesque de laditte ville \_Noyon'] par compassion feit moderer laditte peine en une marque de Jieur de lys cliaude sur I'espaule. Iceluy Calvin confuz de telle vergongne et vitupere, se dejit de ses deux benefices es mains du cure de Noyon, duquel ayant receu quelque somme d'argent s'en alia vers Allemaigne et Itallie : cherchant son adventure, et passa par la ville de Ferrare, ou il receut quelque aumone de Madame la Duchesse." Bolsec gives a,s his authority a Mr. Bertelier, secretary of the Council of Geneva, who, he says, was sent to Noyon to make inquiries about the early life of Calvin, and saw the document of his disgrace. But nobody else has seen such a document, and if it had existed at all, it would have been used against him by his enemies. The story is contradicted by all that is authentically known of Calvin, and has been abundantly refuted by Drelincourt, and recently again by Lefranc (p. 48 sqq., 176-182). Kampschulte (I. 224, note 2) declares it unworthy of serious refutation. Nevertheless it has been often repeated by Roman controversialists down to Audin.
The story is either a malignant slander, or it arose from confounding the Reformer with a younger person of the same name (Jean Cauvin'),a.nA chaplain of the same church at Noyon, wlio it appears was punished for some immorality of a different kind ("pour avoir retenue en sa maison une femme du mauvais gouvernement") in the year 1550, that is, about twenty years later, and who was no heretic, but died a " bon Catholic " (as Le Vasseur reports in Annales de Noyon, p. 1170, quoted by Lefranc, p. 182). B. C. Galiffe, who is unfriendly to Calvin, adopts the latter suggestion (Quelques pages d'histoire exacte, p. 118).
Several other myths were circulated about the Reformer ; e.g., that he was the son of a concubine of a priest ; that he was an intemperate eater ; that he stole a silver goblet at Orleans, etc. See Lefranc, pp. 52 sqq.
Similar perversions and inventions attach to many a great name. The Sanhedrin who crucified the Lord circulated the story that the disciples stole his body and cheated the world. The heretical Ebionites derived the conversion of Paul from disappointed ambition and revenge for an alleged offence of the high-priest, who had refused to give him his daughter in marriage. The long-forgotten myth of Luther's suicide has been seriously revived in our own age (1890) by Roman Catholic priests (Majunke and Honef) in the interest of revived Ultramontanism, and is believed by thousands in spite of repeated refutation.
304 THE RErOK]\LA.T10N LN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.
§ 70. Calvin as a Student in the French Universities. A.D. 1528-1533.
The letters of Calvin from 1530 to 1532, chiefly addressed to his fellowstudent, Francois Daniel of Orleans, edited by Jules Bonnet, in the Edinburgh ed. of Calvin's Letters, I. 3 sqq. ; Herminjard, II. 278 sqq. ; Opera, X. Part II. 3 sqq. His first letter to Daniel is dated " Melliani, 8 Idus Septembr." and is put by Herminjard and Reuss in the year 1530 (not 1529). Mellianum is Meillant, south of Bourges (and not to be confounded with Meaux, as is done in the Edinburgh edition).
Comp. Beza-Colladon, in Op. XXI. 54 sqq., 121 sqq. L. Bonnet: Etudes sur Calvin, in the " Revue Chretienne" for 1855. — Kampschulte, I. 226- 240; M'Crie, 12-28; Lefranc, 72-108.
Calvin received the best education — in the humanities, law, philosophy, and theology — which France at that time could give. He studied successively in the three leading universities of Orleans, Bourges, and Paris, from 1528 to 1533, first for the priesthood, then, at the wish of his father, for the legal profession, which promised a more prosperous career. After his father's death, he turned again with double zeal to the study of the humanities, and at last to theology.
He made such progress in learning that he occasionally supplied the place of the professors. He was considered a doctor rather than an auditor.^ Years afterwards, the memory of his prolonged night studies survived in Orleans and Bourges. By his excessive industry he stored his memory with valuable information, but undermined his health, and became a victim to headache, dyspepsia, and insomnia, of which he suffered more or less during his subsequent life.^
While he avoided the noisy excitements and dissipations of student life, he devoted his leisure to the duties and
^ " Doctor potiiis quam auditor," says Beza, who studied in the same universities a few years later, and lodged at Orleans in the house or pension of Duchemin, a friend of Calvin.
2 Beza (XXI. 122) : " Quibus continuatis vigiliis ille quidem solidam eruditionem et excellentissiman memoriam est consequutus, sed etiam vicissim, ut verisimile est,ventriculi imbecillitatem contraxit,qucE varies ipsi morbos et tandem etiam intempestivam mortem attulit."